Hell to Pay
by dacheesestandsalone
Summary: This is my first fanfiction story, about Cloud, the main character of the game, who finds himself in charge of the world. He's not always sure what to do with it......


Final Fantasy 7:  
Hell to Pay  
  
***Disclaimer***  
I am rubber and you are glue  
You bounce off me and stick to you  
I am rubber and you are glue  
I don't own so please don't sue!!!  
  
In other words, I don't own Final Fantasy in any way, and I am quite happy that Square does.  
  
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Day 1  
  
Cold. Many things in this world are cold. Cold touches everyone and everything. Cold touches the men and women who struggle to stay alive in the roaring winter. Cold is what you feel when you step outside without a jacket. Cold is what hits many people's hearts.  
  
Cloud knew the cold. He had felt it his entire life. When he was a child and his parents shunned him. When he was a teenager and the girls had turned him away. Not that he needed them. His entire life, all Cloud felt that he needed was himself, and the few friends that he had in the world. Barret. Tifa. Yuffie. Nanaki. Aeris. Even Sepiroth was a friend for Cloud at one point. Cloud would regret that forever.  
  
When Aeris died at Sepiroth's blade, Cloud was stricken with feelings of remorse and loss. He never shared his feelings with anyone. Sepiroth and the Shinra had toyed with his feelings for as long as he could remember, and he never shared them with anyone.  
  
Now Sepiroth was gone, Cloud gaining vengeance. The last vestiges of the Shinra were either eradicated or driven far away. There was virtually nobody from Shinra left. Cloud now had it all. The whole world was in his control. People begged him to take the presidency of Shinra and to start over the wrongdoings that Shinra had caused, the torture they had put through the people of the slums and the lives they had taken away. And Cloud accepted. Shinra now belonged to Cloud.  
  
That could have been the biggest mistake that Cloud ever made.  
  
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Cloud sat at the former desk of President Rufus, who had been led to his death by lethal injection just a few moments earlier. Cloud didn't care to watch Rufus die. Instead, he looked out his window and saw the construction vehicles that were already at work. Big, sweaty, muscled men were controlling cranes that picked up debris and carted it into piles. Trucks were driving in with girders and other equipment needed for building houses. The soft, brown dirt, slightly muddy after the sudden downpour that morning, was being moved and carted to other locations, leveling out the ground. Indeed, it was a good sight to see. Sector 7 was being rebuilt.  
  
The sound of clomping made Cloud turn around suddenly. A sergeant from the new Shinra army walked into the room stopped at Cloud's desk, and saluted Cloud.  
  
"At ease, soldier," Cloud said with a steely voice. "Tell me, what news do you bring me about the Mako reactors?"  
  
"Every single one of them was destroyed, sir. All the Mako reactors are gone, and we are no longer sucking up the Mako energy."  
  
"Thank you soldier. Dismissed."  
  
"Yes sir!" the private said, as he saluted, turned and walked out of the room. Cloud smiled for the first time in a long time. It looked as if the new world would be going just fine. All the Mako energy was gone, there was so much Materia that the army would never run short, and everyone was happy that the Shinra were gone. Unfortunately, things don't quite work that way.  
  
The same sergeant rushed into the room, and with out bothering to stop and salute, yelled out, "Shinra rogues are attacking the construction sites, sir!"  
  
Cloud looked out the window. Every word of what the sergeant said was true. Flames shot up, dancing in the wind as they traveled from vehicle to vehicle. Men were hit with swords and magic, and they remembered their families for the last time. Privates and generals of the new Shinra army rushed to evacuate the construction workers before the death toll grew large. Without wasting another second, Cloud thanked and dismissed the private, and rushed out with the Ultimate Weapon to take a look at the situation.  
  
Things looked grim. All the rebuilding work that the construction crew had worked so hard on was being burned to the ground. Corpses were laying on the ground, blood spattering in faces of the survivors. Cloud leaped into action.  
  
The Shinra rogues began to suffer heavy losses. Cloud's Ultimate weapon sliced through their bodies like a knife through hot butter. One tried to hit Cloud in the back with his sword, but Cloud spun around, knocked the sword out of the rogues and, and beat the rogue to death.  
  
Finally, Cloud, weak from the fighting, decided to make the fight go faster. He yelled for his army to stand back, and while the rogues prepared for another assault, he cast Comet3.  
  
The sky started to grow dark. Then, it suddenly grew very bright, and hundreds of meteors fell in the direction of the rogues. Not one survived the Comet3 assault, and the new Shinra emerged victorious.  
  
All privates involved in the evacuation were promoted and given medals of bravery by Cloud himself. Cloud had to work for the rest of the day by organizing the army to clean up the mess that the bloody battle had caused, ordering new construction vehicles and parts, and overseeing the rest of the world. By the time the day was over, Cloud was incredibly tired. Being the president of the entire world was a great responsibility for him, and as he got undressed and into bed, he wondered why he had taken on such a task. And then he realized that he knew the answer. He did it so that the new leader would not screw the world like Shinra did. And with that thought in his mind he went to sleep peacefully and quickly, not knowing that the next day would be even worse.  
  



End file.
